Tag Archives: media

When you’re passionate about something, 100 words is not a lot of space.

That’s the lesson I learned when I wrote to the Public Relations Society of America’s Health Academy about why I wanted to join its executive committee. In the course of editing, I realized I was writing just as much about why I love what I do as I was why I’m excited about the prospect of joining an esteemed and influential group of healthcare communications pros.

Like this:

I’ve been following Katie Sweeney on Twitter for well over a year now. We have a lot of things in common: an interest in changing people’s minds using smart writing, a love for our respective Philadelphia neighborhoods and a minor-league-but-relatively-healthy addiction to Twitter.

More to the point, we use the same kinds of metaphors to describe Twitter to others. And we have the same kind of respect for the influence it can exert. Katie’s story, presented here exclusively in two parts, is a great example of that influence and how Twitter can reveal personalities better than any press conference or commercial ever could.

Here’s her story:

When explaining Twitter to the uninformed I usually take the approach of comparing it to walking into the largest party imaginable and being able to listen and contribute to all the conversations that interest you. With Twitter you can hear about special sales on your favorite products at the same time you hear breaking news headlines.

Before Twitter, you may never have had the opportunity to meet Shaquille O’Neal in person, or tell your favorite author Sloane Crosley how much you love her short stories. With Twitter, you can find out what @Shaq had for breakfast or where @AskAnyone is doing her next book reading.

You may even get your Mayor to come over and help shovel snow on your street, as I did.

My trophy for the week: A featured post on the WordPress Media Tag site.

The fact is, despite all our modern audience targeting and measuring, Mr. Wanamaker still has a point. That blog post — the 30th on my blog — wasn’t discernibly different than my others, it just happened to grab the attention of the right people at the right time.

The same can go for an ad that finally strikes a chord with your target audience. Or a press story that finds a life of its own and spreads through media. Or an online video that’s so successful that it spurs dozens more from celebrities and the president.

To me, Wanamaker’s quote isn’t about luck or frustration. It’s about perseverance in marketing.

Marketing is about a dialogue with people. People — and the things that affect them — are unpredictable, so it’s up to marketing and PR people to learn, tweak and persevere.

Giving up or reducing efforts only ensures that both halves of your marketing efforts will be wasted.